array from Blois, and all the flocks and herds that were sent to
Orleans by the good towns. Right beneath the forts of the English they
rode and marched, with chanting of hymns, priests leading the way, but
none dared meddle with them. Yet a child might have seen that now or
never was the chance: howbeit Talbot and Glasdale and Scales, men well
learned in war, let fire not even a single cannon. It may be that they
feared an attack of the Orleans folk on their bastilles, if they drew out
their men. For, to tell the plain truth, the English had not men-at-arms
enough for the task they took in hand; but they oft achieve much with but
little force, and so presume the more, sometimes to their undoing. And,
till the Maid came, ten of them could chase a hundred of the French.

So the Maid returned, leading the army, and then, being very weary, she
went into her chamber, and lay down on a couch to sleep, her esquire,
D'Aulon, also resting in the room, where were the lady and a daughter of
the house, one Charlotte Boucher. There was I, devising idly with her
page, Louis de Coutes, a boy half Scots by birth, and good-brother to
Messire Florent d'Illiers, who had married his sister. But alas! he was
more French than Scots, and later he left the Maid. But then we were
playing ourselves at the door of the house, and all was still, the men-at-
arms reposing, as we deemed, after their march. Then suddenly the Maid
ran forth to us, her face white and her eyes shining, and cried to Louis
de Coutes, in great anger--

"Wretched boy, the blood of France is being shed, and you told me no word
of it!"

"Demoiselle," said he, trembling, "I wotted not of it. What mean you?"

And I also stood in amaze, for we had heard no sound of arms.

"Go, fetch my horse," she said, and was gone.

I went with him, and we saddled and bridled a fresh courser speedily; but
when we reached the door, she stood there already armed, and sprang on
the horse, crying for her banner, that De Coutes gave her out of the
upper window. Then her spurs were in her horse's side, and the sparks
flying from beneath his hoofs, as she galloped towards St. Loup, the
English fort on the Burgundy road. Thither we followed her, with what
speed we might, yet over tardily; and when we came through crowds of
people, many bearing the wounded on litters, there was she, under the
wall of that fort, in a rain of arrows, holding up her banner, and crying
on the French and Sc